1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image reading and transmitting system which transmits image data acquired by an image reading apparatus through a network to a variety of processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been known image reading and transmitting systems for transmitting image data acquired by image reading apparatus through networks to processing apparatus for displaying, processing, printing, or storing the image data. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,258,264, the applicant proposed a medical system for reading a radiation image of a human body recorded on a stimulable phosphor sheet by laser beam scanning, and also for recording/reproducing or storing/managing the acquired image data after a variety of image processing is performed thereon. In the aforesaid medical system, the acquired radiation image data is transmitted through a local area network or the like to a display apparatus which is used by a doctor for diagnosis.
Systems as described above are generally provided in two forms. A first form automatically transmits image data acquired by an image reading apparatus to a network, while a second form displays image data acquired by an image reading apparatus on a monitor or the like so that an operator who carries out the reading operation can examine whether or not the image data being displayed is wanted image data, and the operator carries out image data transmission to a network only when the image data is judged to be the wanted image data.
The first form is the best from the viewpoint of an operator's operation efficiency. However, the first form results in a heavier workload on the end user, since unsuccessfully read image data are also transmitted over a network. Therefore the user has to distinguish wanted image data from the unsuccessfully read image data. The first form is also not preferable from the viewpoint of network load, since unnecessary image data are also transmitted over a network.
On the other hand, the second form does not have the problems associated with the first form, since only wanted image data are transmitted to a network by an operator. However, in large hospitals where a large amount of radiation images must be processed every day, other problems such as sluggish image data transmission occur, due to the heavy workload on an operator.